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by DesiLurker
1814 days ago
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I agreed with you all the way until the last part about symphony, that is how you lose the attention of managers and leader types. majority of software is not a symphony rather a race car held together by ziptie and ducktapes just well enough to give a feel of something big in behind the curtains. this is especially true if you consider the incremental work projects take on. THAT incremental work IS forecast-able. problem is often all the information need to be able to make that forecast is not in one place & the discovery process is often left unaccounted accidentally or on purpose to commit to tighter deadlines. add to that changing requirements and you have the state of software estimation we are in. |
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Let's agree that estimation is possible to a certain degree. We know this and accept the inherent uncertainty.
Modern project management is whole sale copied from industrial construction and manufacturing. It seems no one stopped to ask whether the same logic applies to software creation. And it doesn't.
The business side of IT is stuck in a mental model build on construction and manufacturing. Yet the process of creating software contains neither of those concepts with the exception of automated build and deploy (and costs for those are negligible).
It is also interesting that no distinct vocabulary for software exists. We build, deploy, construct, have factories and so forth. Again copied from disciplines which are complicated - but not complex.
It is not possible to obtain the information you refer to by analysis. That's a property of a complex system. Analysis of parts neglects the interaction between parts and in software more or less everything is connected.
This is one of the reasons why we cannot forecast weather and why we cannot reliably estimate software.
Now, if I start my explanation this way I'm also sure to lose their attention. So what do we do? Which intellectual approach will captivate these people, retain their attention and at least plant a seed of doubt in the established way of working?